


A wild call and a clear call

by FanchonMoreau



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16213814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanchonMoreau/pseuds/FanchonMoreau
Summary: Violet doesn’t know where she’s going, when she first leaves Hunt’s house.Violet figures out where she's running to. Post Season Two.





	A wild call and a clear call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



> Warning: There is a mention of child prostitution, in keeping with how it is portrayed on the show.

Violet doesn’t know where she’s going, when she first leaves Hunt’s house.

A part of her wants to walk all night. Past Golden Square and Greek Street, past the Strand and Temple Bar and all the way down to St. Paul’s. How far could she go? She could pick up her skirts and run all the way to the docks at the edge of the city. She could find a sailor’s garment, sneak onto a ship, and be sailing to the East Indies by morning.

There was a sailor, there were so many sailors, but there was one of her color, back when she was still a girl. He paid her three crowns, more money than she’d ever gotten from a cull before, and when they were done, he rolled out a map of the world for her to see. Don’t go west, he said, because that’s the Americas and they’ll make a slave of you there. But _east_. East is the land of spice and silk, where men’s faces are dark and women wear their hair loose and long down their backs. If you go, he said, go east.

Sometimes there are culls where all she can do is lie on her back or crush her body against a rough wall and think, _go east_. And there are moments in Hunt’s house, when the work makes her numb and Amelia is so very far away, when she thinks: _go east_.

Amelia’s never going to be safe so long as she’s anywhere near her. So perhaps it’s time to finally follow the call, and go east.

But she can hardly walk past Soho. The night’s cool and clear, and in a fit of fancy she looks up. The stars, she learned about those from the sailors, too.

One sailor, more like.

“What are you doing out of Hunt’s house?”

Violet starts. For a moment, she thinks she’s conjured the voice of Margaret Wells, but she turns around and finds only Nancy. Nancy’s leaning into the shadows, so all Violet can really see is her outline and the wisps of smoke curling from her pipe. She does that to spook, Violet knows. It’s never worked on her.

“Man’s drunk,” Violet says, with a tiny shrug. “He’s drunk and he can’t hold his drink. He won’t notice I’m gone until long into the morning.”

Nancy nods and takes a step forward, so Violet can see her face. She looks Violet up and down. “How do you mean _gone_?”

Violet narrows her eyes. She makes sure she has Nancy’s attention, and then she snatches Nancy’s pipe straight from her hands.

She smiles. Her hands are still light as ever.

“Gone,” Violet repeats. She takes a long drag of Nancy’s pipe, and blows the smoke out slowly. “I’ll not lick that man’s boots a moment longer. Besides, he’ll have a wife soon, won’t have need of me.”

Nancy’s face softens. She inclines her head to the door of her house, and Violet, still clutching Nancy’s pipe between her fingers, follows her in. Takes a seat at Nancy’s table. Nancy lights a candle and places it between them, and Violet suddenly remembers something Amelia told her, long before either of them were in Hunt’s house. That prayer is an opportunity to speak to God, and for God to see you.

Violet had thought it ludicrous, at the time.

Nancy gently takes the pipe from her, inhales once, and then puts it out and sets it aside. “What business does Amelia have marrying him? He’s got no job, no allies, no friends that I can see. What’s he got to offer her that’s anything more than what she already has?”

Violet snorts at that. “He might have no friends, but he does have some money and that’s not nothing. He can keep her safe. And she won’t…”

Violet stops, directs her gaze at the candle’s flickering light. She won’t meet Nancy’s eyes, but she can feel the full weight of Nancy’s attention fixed on her. It unbalances her just as it comforts her, which is just as it was when she first encountered it, so many years ago now.

“And you think leaving London will keep her safe,” Nancy says. The look she gives Violet is almost pitying. She sighs, shakes her head. “The only place she’ll be safe is in your head. You’ll never know the truth so long as you scamper off with your tail between your legs like a scared mutt.”

Violet feels her hand clench into a fist. She’s not running away. She’s protecting Amelia. “I’m not scared,” she insists.

Nancy laughs, and it’s a low, sad sound. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Violet’s cheeks heat with anger. She’s not scared. Nancy doesn’t understand; she just thinks she does. She thinks because they both desire women that she can tell Violet what she should do and how she should feel. But Nancy doesn’t know the first thing about Violet’s life, or her relationship with Amelia. She doesn’t know how much Amelia wants, and how deeply Amelia loves, and how dangerous it is for the both of them. And how would she?

“At least I won’t spend years watching her love a man,” Violet spits out.

Violet regrets it as soon as she hears it out loud. Nancy’s jaw locks, and then her whole body goes still. The room goes quiet.

They sit together like that for a long time. Violet knows she needs to speak, but she can’t find the words and it gets harder the longer she waits.

So she waits and she waits, until something breaks between them and the room seems to gape open for Nancy’s rage. “Get out,” Nancy rasps. Her voice carries all of the brutal pain of a brand to the skin, or a stab to the gut.

Violet doesn’t protest. She acknowledges Nancy with a curt nod of her head, and then she stumbles out into the night.

The first thing she thinks is: _go east._ And for once, she needn’t shake herself free of the thought. If she walks east to the docks, she can get on a boat that will take her so far east that she’ll fall off the edge of the world.

And she’ll be free.

She starts to run, but as soon as she picks up some speed, a passing horse and buggy nearly runs over her feet. She stops, bends her knees, catches her breath. After the brief panic ebbs away, her head swings up and she looks at the stars.

_You have to know what you’re looking for. You have to keep track of time, you have to count second by second. And then you have to find the fixed star in the sky, and follow how it moves toward or away from the horizon. Then you measure the distance between them, the star and the horizon. Our first mate has a new tool that will measure it properly. But me, I just use my fingers._

Bonnie. Violet used to think of her every day-- her red-gold hair, her sturdy frame, the strength of her grip clutching Violet’s hand and leading her away from the drunk gaggles of sailors. She fed Violet dried meats and bought her beer and whiskey, gave her a few crowns that she stole from her shipmates. She snuck on the boats dressed as a young man, and the men on the ship bathed so rarely that no one was the wiser.

They spent three days together in Violet’s makeshift bed at the back of a warehouse. They touched and kissed until Violet crest and broke with all of the force of the sea. But she was gone when her ship left for America, and Violet never saw her again.

She pursued Amelia thinking first: she is very pretty, and I will be her Bonnie.

 _That was foolish of you_ , says a voice in her head. Nancy’s voice. Nancy, of course Nancy won’t leave her be. That’s not Nancy’s way. Nancy never pursues but she does linger--in shadows, outside brothels, in the stands of the court of law. On the docklands, where a filthy urchin girl once desperately needed a warm bed, a new dress, and a solace that went beyond food and board, a thing she couldn’t place or name.

She and Nancy never spoke about women, not out loud. It just lived between them. Violet saw the way Nancy looked at Margaret; Nancy saw how Violet was drawn to Amelia. Sometimes, she and Nancy would meet eyes, and see each other. And nod.

But Nancy didn’t see everything, Violet thinks bitterly. She didn’t see _anything_ , and that’s not true but Violet thinks it anyway. She wishes there were some way to take everything that Nancy saw back.

The crack of the whip on a horse takes her out of her thoughts. She hasn’t been watching her steps; she hasn’t been aware of herself. That’s not like her at all. She’s been wandering around London with all of the carelessness of a sloppy drunk. And she doesn’t know why.

She’s not even sure precisely where she is, until she sees the threshold. She’s walked herself all the way back to Hunt’s house.

She curses under her breath. In her head, she’s chanting _go east go east go east,_ but her feet just keep taking her to the same tiresome places.

But perhaps there is no harm in saying goodbye. It may, after everything that’s happened, be what she owes Amelia. Even if it will be painful for them both.

She takes care to tread softly when she enters the house. She finds Hunt sprawled across his bed and grunting in his sleep; he won’t be waking anytime soon.

Amelia’s still right where Violet left her: asleep in the small bed in the spare room. Everything that was torn open has since been stitched up, but she still looks pale as a corpse. Against her better judgment, Violet sits on the bed next to Amelia’s knee.

Amelia stirs.

“Where’d you go?” she whispers.

“Out,” says Violet, before she thinks. She looks at her hands. “A walk. Nowhere.”

“Nowhere?” Amelia repeats. Her voice is weak, from the stabbing or the suffocation Violet doesn’t know, but it still lifts in teasing question. It almost makes Violet want to cry. That Amelia sees death, touches death, and comes back joyful. Comes back herself.

Violet reaches for Amelia’s hand, and Amelia cups it in her own. _Going soft, Cross?_ Nancy admonishes in her head. Nancy, she realizes, who she’ll never see again if she sails for the east in the morning. And Amelia, she’ll leave Amelia as easily as Bonnie left her.

She feels Amelia smile softly into the darkness. “What are you thinking?” Amelia asks.

Violet strokes her thumb across Amelia’s wrist. “How do you…” she starts, but then she meets Amelia’s eyes and loses her nerve. She shakes her head, starts again. “Do you really believe God forgives everyone?”

Amelia’s eyes widen. Violet can see she’s thinking of Fallon, Quigley, the Spartans. But Violet’s selfish: she’s only thinking if Amelia could ever forgive her if she left.

Amelia shifts her hand and laces their fingers together. “It’s been on my mind, too,” she admits. She squeezes Violet’s hand. “I think Jesus offers forgiveness and love to us all. But perhaps… perhaps there’s nothing He can do for those who cannot see that that they have sinned. Nor for those who won’t accept His love.”

Violet disentangles her hand from Amelia’s. She doesn’t care a whit about God’s love, but Christ…. _Amelia’s_. Amelia’s love is big and untamed, and so dangerous for them both. Perhaps more dangerous than a man with a knife, or a night on a stormy sea.

And it’s wilder. And _freer_. Perhaps that is why Violet covets it so much.

Violet raises her eyes and searches Amelia’s face. She wants to accept Amelia’s love, that’s the terrible truth of it.

Amelia suddenly moves forward. Violet reaches for her hands again, to try to stop her from over-exerting herself, but before she knows it, Amelia has taken her in her arms. She drops her head on Violet’s shoulder, and Violet wraps an unsteady arm around her.

“You were going to leave,” Amelia says, her lips almost brushing Violet’s neck. “You were going to leave for good.”

Violet stiffens. She doesn’t know how Amelia knows this. She was hardly gone from the house a few hours.

Amelia’s tears start to run down Violet’s dress. “I don’t begrudge you,” she says, with some effort. “I know how much you want your freedom. And I feel terrible. Because I was the one who shackled you.”

“You never shackled me,” Violet says. She smoothes a hand over Amelia’s hair. The soft strands come apart between her fingers. She thinks maybe this is what silk feels like.

Amelia pulls back to look at Violet. She smiles sadly. “You make me feel freer than I’ve ever been. But at what cost?”

The confession robs Violet of breath. In a wild fit of imagination, she sees her and Amelia on some faraway shore, miles away from bawds and justices and zealous mothers. Starting again, in a prosperous land, where not a soul knows who they are.

But it’s not as simple as that. So many of her culls from the docks would tell her they’d come back in the spring, or in the fall, only for a shipmate to return and say the man died on the sea. And it’s fine for the sailors and for harlots like her, but she’ll not have that happen to Amelia.

Violet stifles a sigh. She doesn’t believe either of them will ever be truly free. But she doesn’t have the heart to tell Amelia that.

“No cost that we can pay,” she whispers. “Neither of us are in this house freely. But--”

She pauses here. If she says what she wants to say, she cannot recant it. She cannot turn and run from it. But if she cannot see her own truth and name it plainly, perhaps that is the cowardice Nancy found in her.

She takes a breath. “I love you, freely. And I am with you, freely.”

Amelia’s face breaks open with joy. She embraces Violet, hard, kisses her jaw, then her cheek, and her lips, and her lips again, and again and again with increasing fervor.

“Come,” Violet says, breaking their kiss with some reluctance. There’s mischief in Amelia’s eyes, an intoxicating promise that they will have to wait to fulfill. “If you are to be well, you best go back to sleep.”

Amelia frowns, but nods. She beckons Amelia to lie next to her on the bed. They will barely fit, and she knows that she will have to stay awake, lest Hunt emerge from his stupor and discover them. But that is all right with her. She loops an arm gently around Amelia’s waist and tries not to fall off the bed.

Amelia is asleep within moments. Violet stares at the four dirty walls of the small bedroom-- no window, no way for the light to get in. She can’t say what happens now, except she told Amelia she’ll stay with her, and she doesn’t go back on her word. She supposes that means she will serve Hunt a little while longer.

Tomorrow, at least, she will go to Nancy’s and try to make things right.

And besides, not all is lost. Amelia’s here and safe. She can still find a way to make money, steal if she needs to. She can hide it away for her and Amelia, to do what with, she’s not yet sure. _Let’s run away_ , Amelia pleads, over and over in Violet’s head.  

Eventually, Violet feels herself drift into a uneasy sleep. She dreams of the east, and the stars, and the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Title is from John Masefield's poem "Sea Fever."


End file.
